Dispatches: High Time for US Whistleblower Reform

Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden appears live via video during a student organized world affairs conference at the Upper Canada College private high school in Toronto, February 2, 2015.

Today marks two years since the first of Edward Snowden’s revelations about United States government surveillance shocked the world. Yet despite the international debate on privacy and the proper role of government surveillance that his disclosures set in motion, Snowden remains in precarious exile in Russia, facing charges in the US under the antiquated Espionage Act.

At present, US law does not allow a person charged under the Espionage Act to raise as a defense that the public benefit of exposure of official misconduct outweighs any harm caused by the revelation. And Congress has made no legislative progress to reverse this gap or provide alternative ways for whistleblowers to alert the public of matters of great importance without fear of prosecution.

The real debate (filibusters and all) on section 215 of the USA Patriot Act and the passage of the USA Freedom Act must have given some satisfaction to Snowden, but it is just the beginning of the reforms that his revelations should impel. Until it is acknowledged that whistleblowers who reveal government misconduct to the media deserve protection in certain circumstances, an important pressure valve that protects democracy will be relegated to those rare instances where a conscience-stricken individual is willing to sacrifice his or her future.

It shouldn’t be that way.

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